“The Duke [John Wayne] was a massive figure. He looked like a heavy piece of hauled lumber, and it didn't seem like any man could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.”

“When Johnson started singing, he seemed like a guy who could have sprung from the head of Zeus in full armor.”

“Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it's like they didn't fade away at all.”

“I was always fishing for something on the radio. Just like trains and bells, it was part of the soundtrack of my life. I moved the dial up and down and Roy Orbison's voice came blasting out of the small speakers. His new song, "Running Scared," exploded into the room.Orbison, though, transcended all the genres - folk, country, rock and roll or just about anything. His stuff mixed all the styles and some that hadn't even been invented yet. He could sound mean and nasty on one line and then sing in a falsetto voice like Frankie Valli in the next. With Roy, you didn't know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. He kept you on your toes. With him, it was all about fat and blood. He sounded like he was singing from an Olympian mountaintop and he meant business. One of his previous songs, "Ooby Dooby" was deceptively simple, but Roy had progressed. He was now singing his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal. Typically, he'd start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttring to yourself something like, "Man, I don't believe it." His songs had songs within songs. They shifted from major to minor key without any logic. Orbison was deadly serious - no pollywog and no fledgling juvenile. There wasn't anything else on the radio like him.”

“look, you know i don't wanna come on ungrateful, but that warren report, you know as well as me, just didn't make it. You know, like they might as well have asked some banana salesman from des moines, who was up in toronto on the big day, if he saw anyone around looking suspicious/...”

“Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Bob, why are you resisting me?' I said, 'I'm not resisting You!' He said, 'You gonna follow Me?' I said, 'I've never thought about that before!' He said, 'When you're not following Me. you're resisiting Me.”

“Look at the sun sinkin' like a ship. Ain't that just like my heart, babe. When you kissed my lips?”